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My Favorite Lecture: Community-Based Innovation

KHSU
Published February 26, 2018 at 6:52 PM PST
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Swale outside NYC
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Aboard Swale
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Swale in NYC
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Mike Dronkers/KHSU
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Community teaching aboard Swale
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NYC's Foodway project
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Waterpod
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One educational way to power laptops
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What Needs & Resources meetings look like
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Plastic bottle construction examples
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Hiding the bottles
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New schoolroom, practivist-style.
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Local media with the hardhat-clad crew
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Melted HDPE plastic with, essentially, sandwich presses,
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Making plastic-bottle tiles
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Intermitttent power plagued this animal shelter
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Invasive beachgrass chokes out native flora
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Student-designed "stretchbarrow"
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Beachgrass baler
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Campus Center for Appropriate Technology (CCAT) and beachgrass insulation
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Completed greenhouse with beachgrass insulation
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Zane Middle School, Eureka CA
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Rain catchment system with breakaway ziptie childproofing in the top right
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Arcata Sanctuary's water-saving restroom
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Commuter RadBike designed by Grafman's former student, Mike Radenbaugh
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Audience teams coming up with secret handshakes
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Credit Mike Dronkers/KHSU
Lonny Grafman after the lecture

On this episode of My Favorite Lecture, engineering instructor Lonny Grafman shows how engineers benefit from community engagement.

By approaching problems through the lens of practical activism, or 'practivism', he says that codesigning can keep projects functional long after the engineers have left.

"I know I've done my job right when I become irrelevant," he says. "Which happens really fast." 

Swale, a food forest, off the New York City shoreline

Resources and References

Thanks to Arcata Main Street, Humboldt State University, Jeanette Todd, Cafe Brio, Lost Coast Light and Sound, and Plaza Grill for their support of My Favorite Lecture.

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KHSU Audio MY FAVORITE LECTURELONNY GRAFMAN
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